


But It Would Be Nothing

by lady_ragnell



Series: Prompt Reposts [24]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:05:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3525155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot knows long before she meets Sophie that every woman is a grifter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But It Would Be Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr [here](http://theladyragnell.tumblr.com/post/112112940048/oooh-if-youre-doing-prompts-leverage-ot3-in-a). The title is from James Brown's "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World."

Eliot knows long before she meets Sophie that every woman is a grifter. Every woman knows just who to be to get out of a situation alive, to get out unhurt, to get out without another scary story to tell her friends, without a confrontation or a new contact in her phone or some new perspective she doesn't want on her body. Sophie just takes it to the logical extreme.

Eliot's spent so long with men, so long making herself better than them at everything, that when she's on a team that's all women she doesn't know how to fit in at first. Sophie slips into the center of them, because it's her job to be a chameleon, so it makes sense to Eliot that they orbit around her even if they all follow Natalie. The rest of them, they take longer to figure things out. Eliot doesn't think any of them are used to women.

She understands Natalie maybe more than she wants to sometimes. She knows Natalie is a mess, held together by the job and some notion of revenge and Sophie, but Natalie needs to win, to be better than whoever they're up against. Eliot's not going to pretend she hasn't spent her life doing that, from kickball on the playground to the army to now.

She doesn't get Hardison and Parker at all.

*

“You don't stab a guy with a fork in the middle of a party, Parker, not if you still need something from him!”

Parker sets her jaw, and she's not going to budge on it like she doesn't budge on anything else. “Well, I did it.”

Either Parker never learned to bite down on this kind of thing, or she doesn't do it on purpose. Eliot wouldn't say she's jealous about it, but she's a trained killer, a wolf on a leash, and she wouldn't have stabbed him like Parker did. Maybe she should, sometimes, when it won't ruin a job. “You can't go off the rails like this in a job, you saw Natalie back there. She's upset. You want to stay on this team? You've got to listen to her and Sophie.”

“We're going to find another way to get Luca,” snaps Parker, and storms out.

*

Eliot doesn't really like Hardison at first. She's all bluster and swagger, and she talks about her tech like she doesn't expect Eliot or any of them to understand her genius.

She fucks up, and she lands a plane for them and cries on the comms afterwards, and Eliot gets that more than she wants to, the terror that comes from people getting hurt or even almost hurt on her fuck-up.

Hardison is waiting for them all when they get home with a case of beer and some movie that isn't technically out yet, and Natalie is the only one to scold her, and Eliot notices the way her shoulders relax when they don't bring it up, when Parker starts complaining about how hard it was to do anything useful in the flight attendant dress until she finally starts laughing and says next time she'll take the job with the porn fantasy costume.

Somehow they're all laughing then, exchanging stories about going on jobs and getting mistaken for actresses or fantasies or strippers or a hundred other things, and it's not the kind of story Eliot would ever tell with a guy in the room. It's definitely not the kind of story she would laugh about with a guy in the room.

Eliot has known this team is good from the beginning—it has to be, with so many people who have had to prove themselves a hundred times over—but she's just starting to realize she actually likes the people on it.

*

“Hey. Natalie and Sophie out?”

Eliot, concentrating on the game on the screen instead of Hardison coming through the door, just nods. Parker is next to her figuring out some new supposedly unpickable padlock with her tongue stuck out of her mouth and a timer going on her phone, and Eliot doesn't even wonder anymore when this became her typical Saturday night, sitting on a couch with one or both of them, letting Parker do whatever it is Parker does and listening to Hardison ramble about whatever she's inventing this week, just as chatty even when she isn't all bluster.

“Great. I brought beer but I didn't bring enough for everyone.” Hardison perches on the couch on Parker's other side, tossing Eliot a beer and putting one on the table in front of Parker for when she's done.

It's been a long time since Eliot felt like she was grifting with either one of them, and it's weird after so many years, not having to know every second she's with someone just how to get out of the room if it goes south. She thinks it's good. “Thanks.”

Hardison frowns at the game even though Eliot is fairly sure she's never sat through a hockey game in her life. “Nat's got a client meeting in the morning, looks like. Ready for another one?”

“We're always ready,” says Parker, the lock suddenly dangling open in her hands. By Eliot's count it took her less than ten minutes to pick an unpickable lock. “I hope I get to slap a guy again.”

She's learning how to fake it, but she'll always be Parker, and that's weirdly comforting now. And considering Hardison kneed a guy in the groin for hitting on her at a bar in their last con, it seems like Parker's influence is spreading. “What, you're not going to punch him?” Eliot asks.

Parker rolls her eyes. “I know how grifting works.”

“Don't we all,” says Eliot, and toasts them both with her beer. Judging by the nods she gets in return, they know what she means.


End file.
